Shadows and Steel | ✓

chapter forty-six

-46-

Tan found Rand curled in the corner of his cell, his linen shirt ripped and bloodied. Her eyes adjusted to the dingy lighting. Down in the depths of DETRA it stank of piss—piss and vomit. Dirty hay had been scattered across the cold floor. What a fate to have befallen the mighty wolf.

She smirked as he kept his head bowed. Tan tapped the bars.

"What do you want?" His voice was hoarse and broken, so different from the silky tone he once commanded.

"Can't a friend pop in and say hello?" Tan shivered in the cold, wrapping her arms around herself. Rand's place in DETRA had been forfeited as soon as the trials had ended. The poison hadn't worked. A few moments more and Vhiena would have been squirming on the ground, paralysed completely. Rand would kill her. Cerid would weep over her body—no, the Imperial Heir.

But that plan had gone askew somehow.

After the match she had stormed over, demanding to see Rand's stained palms. You imbecile! Didn't you poison the girl? Whitelace didn't scrub off the skin easily; it left residue of white powder for a few hours at least. There was only one thing she could do. Tan grabbed his hand. She didn't listen to his mumbled groans and excuses. "Poison!" She gasped aloud.

Rand squirmed and tried to wrench his hand away. His eyes flashed with confusion. "What are you doing?"

It all happened quite fast from there. Having caught the attention of bystanders, Rand was seized, the chalky substance confirmed to be whitelace and he was taken away. As he was dragged away, kicking and struggling despite his injuries, the man shot a baleful glare back at Tan.

He was a fool and since he hadn't managed to kill Vhiena, his worth had expired.

Tan had winked at the man and smirked, turning as his answering roar was swallowed into the hall beyond.

Now he was a shadow of that man, curled up in on himself and rotting away in DETRA's prison. The guards remained in their positions by the door, so she leant closer. "I want you to tell me something."

Rand whimpered.

"What can you tell me of the traitor who they caught last night?"

"The agent from the Order?"

Interesting. "Yes."

Recognition glinted in his eyes. "I couldn't sleep."

Tan bobbed her head impatiently and wrapped her cloak around herself tighter. "What happened?"

"The brown-haired boy didn't scream at first. They dragged him down and worked on him through the night." He pointed a finger to the ominous door to their right. "He didn't beg, or cry."

"A spy from the Order...did you hear what he confessed? Why he was in DETRA? Who else is working with him?"

"I wouldn't tell you anyway. You betrayed me," he hissed.

The man's mind was already distant after a week of being trapped down in the darkness. Absentmindedly, he drew circles on the stone with a sharp fingernail. "Very well." She said stiffly, standing. Useless man. All she needed was information about the Order's agents—she collected those secrets to survive, to get what she wanted.

"I saw something in the dark last night, Tessie." Rand mumbled.

Tan was about to snap that she wasn't this Tessie but thought better of it. "You did?"

"A beast with wings. I saw a light—I don't like the light anymore." He said, resting his head against the back wall of the cell. "I saw something evil lurking. You have to save yourself, Tessie."

"Something evil?" She probed.

"It will ravage our world." In the low light she saw his eyes glisten with anguish. "It will come."

Tan shook her head at the broken man and ascended the steps out of the dingy place. "Good-bye, Rand."